Guest Who: Prick Nelson

COVID-19 sheltering in place calls for comfort television. And few things comfort me more than Quinn Martin productions, with their assortment of guest stars sprinkled into the opening credits of each episode. Recently, I found a boxed set of seasons one through three of The Streets of San Francisco for $12.00 and have been chugging through them, enjoying the location scenery and the various people who have popped up on the show. The homicide detective series with Karl Malden and Michael Douglas was filmed entirely in the show's locale, giving it an immediate authenticity (and now nostalgia) few other series could boast of. This post, though, is only focusing on one particular guest star of the many who appeared on the show.

Nelson in the credits once his name is gone.

In an episode called "Harem," we find one Rick Nelson. Some of you may know him better as Ricky Nelson, some of you may have no clue on earth who he was at all! He plays a sleazy, flute-playing pimp with a harem of underage girls who work for him. Unfortunately, when some of them fall out of line, they wind up missing or dead! This sort of role was quite a departure for a man who was once a fresh-scrubbed child star who literally grew up in front of television viewers of the 1950s. Before we cover his Streets role, lets look at his prior career a bit.

Popular bandleader Ozzie Nelson and his wife (and singer) Harriet Hilliard developed a very popular radio program about their family in 1944, with actors portraying their two young sons, David and Ricky. Early in 1949, the boys (at ages 12 and 8) began playing themselves on the hit show. In 1952, after a movie (Here Come the Nelsons) to try things out, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet hit television airwaves and was a smash hit.

From 1952 to 1966, faithful viewers tuned in to see The Nelsons confront their various domestic situations and observe the boys growing from young teenagers into young men. The show remains one of the longest running sitcoms in TV history.

Nelson was at first a sickly child, suffering from asthma and sleeping near a vaporizer. This led to a certain insecurity and shyness which he overcame to a degree from his work on the show. Eventually, a talent for singing was discovered and his always-enterprising father helped secure a record deal for him.

Initially drawn to singing in order to impress his girlfriend and emulate his rockabilly idol, Elvis Presley, Nelson scored a hit in 1958 with "Poor Little Fool." In time, he would amass more Top 40 hits in the years from 1957-1962 than any other artists besides Pat Boone and his beloved Elvis. He became a staggering success with hordes of female fans going wild over his every move.

I'm sorry, your what has a what in it?? He's impossibly pretty in this record sleeve portrait. Those lashes...! Like Presley, Nelson went into the U.S. Army and emerged a man, rather than a boy.

Upon his 21st birthday in 1961, he dropped the "y" from the end of his name and became Rick Nelson. Check out the pout he'd developed by the time of this photo.

Though a certain shyness remained (not to mention a level of serene stoicism), Nelson had fully grown into his features and was strikingly handsome.

He had done a few small movie roles, but in 1959's Rio Bravo (alongside John Wayne, Dean Martin and Angie Dickinson), Nelson made an impact. His vast fan following led director Howard Hawks to credit him with much of the movie's success.

Nonetheless, music remained his primary focus. I love his face here. Those lips... those eyes!

There was also a period when the Nelson brothers did a trapeze act (no, that's not their parents!) David had learned about the art while working on Irwin Allen's The Big Circus (1959) and got his brother in on the action for a while.

After a couple of prior relationships (of which his mother was disdainful), Nelson married the daughter of family friend and football player Tom Harmon. (You might know his son, Mark?) Kristin Harmon was pregnant with daughter Tracy at the time of the hastily-arranged wedding in 1963, but soon she was part of the family and began appearing on The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet as Rick's wife!

Before their turbulent marriage led to an acrimonious divorce in 1982, they had had three more children. There were towheaded twins Gunnar and Matthew, followed by Sam.

Depending on your age, you will recall Gunnar and Matthew's own rock career in the band Nelson. Look carefully at all the hair and attitude being put forth in this publicity photo! Sweet baby Jesus!!

Now onto the subject at hand, Rick Nelson's appearance on The Streets of San Francisco. As mentioned before, he plays a flute-playing slime ball who supplements his meager income by pimping out young girls for sex.

Sort of a Pied Piper of Handlin'...

This was just a couple of years after Charles Manson's 1971 trial for the murder of Sharon Tate and others. Stories featuring cult leaders and other unsavory types of that sort were prevalent in movies and on TV. (With Nelson here is one of his more tender acquaintances, Laurette Spang.)

Here we find Nelson blowing away on his flute as another of his gals comes to pay a visit, Kay Lenz in an early acting role.

In the time since his teen years, Nelson had developed one hellaciously hair chest, which he rarely showed off in its entirety. While he might wear shirts open to the waist, shirtless photos are remarkably elusive once he stopped keeping his chest smooth. Now... the reason for the title of this post is not solely due to the fact that Nelson's character here is a royal prick. There's a double meaning at work...

As Nelson rises to put on his sport coat, he provides us a glimpse of a pair of the most revealing blue jeans evah!

Only in the late-'60s or 1970s (or perhaps early-'80s) would we see a pair of trousers like this. It's one of the reasons, apart from many others, that I LOVE vintage television.

Here is an example of the great location shooting that took place for TSOSF. If you can tear your eyes away from those jeans.

At one point in the story, Nelson tries to throw detective Michael Douglas off his scent by donning a gold hoop earring and subtly playing gay during the questioning! This being 1973, it's all done with reasonable restraint, but we get what he was going for (and it was San Francisco after all!)

In time for the big capture at the end, Nelson's revealing jeans are front and center again.

I cannot say that his performance left any particularly outstanding impression on me, but those pants certainly did!

Nelson left this world altogether too soon. Working the nostalgia circuit in the mid-1980s, he remained a popular concert attraction both for his early hits as well as his mid-'70s one, "Garden Party." Refusing to travel the country by bus, he owned a rather ramshackle 40 year-old plane that unfortunately ran into trouble and crashed, killing all the passengers (while the two pilots barely escaped with their lives through a cockpit window.) He was 45.

The Very Thought of You indeed...!